Oxidation resistant ferritic stainless steels are considered to be promising candidate materials for interconnects and cell frames in high temperature electrochemical devices including solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC) and solid oxide electrolysis cells (SOEC) interconnect applications in SOFC stacks operating in the intermediate temperature range of from about 650° C. to about 850° C. due to their thermal expansion match with other stack materials (e.g., anode-supported cells and seals), their ability to form a conductive oxide scale, and their relatively low cost. However, these metals require a protective coating to block evaporation of chromium (Cr), an important constituent of the metals. Without the protective coating, volatile chromium (Cr) species can evaporate and poison the electrochemical cell thereby degrading the electrochemical performance over time. Aluminization is considered a viable solution to address the evaporation problem in ferritic steel components. Aluminization is conventionally performed with such high-temperature processes as vapor phase deposition and pack cementation. However, these conventional approaches must be performed on metallic components before being inserted in the stack during the stack assembly, and often involve expensive aluminum precursor materials. In some cases, an additional high-temperature heat treatment may be needed to re-flatten individually aluminized components to eliminate any warping that occurred during the aluminization process. As will be appreciated by those of ordinary skill in the art, extra processing steps can increase manufacturing costs. Accordingly new processes are needed that can provide aluminization of metallic parts economically, efficiently, and without the need for these heat treatments and/or expensive raw material. The present invention addresses these needs.